Archive for August, 2010
August 10, 2010
Now that the summer holiday season is underway, we have received a number of queries about what happens if someone is off sick during a period of annual leave. The law in this area has changed and has left many employers unsure about their position.
So if you have an employee whose holiday is ruined by a bout of Delhi belly, or who breaks their leg during their ski trip, does that mean that they get their leave back to use again at a later date? Read more
August 10, 2010
The question of what happens to holiday when an employee is off sick is separate, but related, to the question of what happens when an employee is off sick when on holiday. However, there have been recent developments in this area too. Read more
August 10, 2010
LinkedIn is a website specifically for professional networking. While many employers still do not allow staff to access social networking sites during working hours, because LinkedIn has a business context it is often permitted where other sites such as Facebook are not. LinkedIn has business benefits: it raises profile and creates wide communities of contacts both internally and externally. However, on the flipside, the website essentially creates a database of contacts which are outside the employer’s control, leaving an open threat to a business of misuse of those contacts. So, to what extent can a company impose control over the use of LinkedIn, if at all? Read more
August 10, 2010
You cannot have missed the fact that the Government have announced the demise of the Default Retirement Age (DRA) – it has attracted significant media attention, and rightly so, as it will affect huge numbers of people.
The plan is to remove the DRA from 1 October 2011. In practice this means that the last time that an employer will be able to serve an employee with a six month retirement notice will be 31 March 2011. If the employee’s birthday falls before 1 October 2011 but the employer has not served the appropriate notice before 31 March 2011, then it will not be possible to retire them. Any employees whose 65th birthday falls on or after 1 October 2011 will automatically be covered by the new regime and an employer will not be able to retire them. It may be possible for individual employers to justify a specific retirement age, but in practice it is likely to be rare for there to be sufficient grounds to do this. Read more